This is not just another McDonald’s

The McDonald’s franchise on Sixth Avenue and 28th Street appears to be a typical unremarkable fast-food building on the edge of Manhattan’s ever-shrinking Flower District.

But if you look closely at the building, you can see an unusual motif that wraps its way all around the structure: pairs of intertwined seahorses framing a trident.

The sea-creature motif exists because the building originally housed a Child’s restaurant—part of a chain of eateries the dotted New York City in the first half of the 20th century, like Schrafft’s and Horn and Hardart’s Automat.

Not all Child’s restaurants had this logo; the famous one on the Coney Island Boardwalk, landmarked in 2003 and now Dreamland Roller Rink, features colorful terra cotta fish, seashells, ships, and King Neptune.

* The southeast corner of 45th Street and 43rd Avenue
* 60th Street, between 44th Avenue and Queens Boulevard
* Roosevelt Avenue, between 63rd Street and 64th Street
* The northeast corner of 36th Street and Broadway
* The east side of Fresh Pond Road, at 67th Avenue

They all appear to be close to what was their original form. I see that the seahorses and the background at the McDonald’s have all been painted black. Plus, there is additional ornamentation at the above sites.